


Transgender Dysphoria Blues

by SinisterMind



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: 5SOS - Freeform, Ashton-centric, F/M, In band, Lashton - Freeform, M/M, boysxboy, i guess, mtf, transgender!Ashton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 13:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5130143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterMind/pseuds/SinisterMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I want them to see me like they see any other girl</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transgender Dysphoria Blues

**Author's Note:**

> I highly recommend listening to Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me! 
> 
> There will be transphobic scenarios in this. 
> 
> I am NOT transgender so I don't have a lot of experience with this.
> 
> I apologise if I get any information wrong.

Sometimes Ashton felt too big for his body.

 

Like his skin was permanently bruised.

 

Like there was poison in his veins.

 

He’d look in the mirror and nothing _fit_. His name didn’t fit, his body didn’t fit, his clothes didn’t fit and nothing fit.

 

Ashton saw what people said about him on twitter.

 

How he looked the manliest in the band.

 

He didn’t want to be the manliest. He didn’t want to be a man at all. He _wasn’t_ a man.

 

Ashton leaned closer to the mirror and ran his hands down his face. He looked tired, he _was_ tired. There were dark circles under his eyes, his hair was brushing against his shoulders and _this is how it should be_.

 

When the band was on break, he’d gotten out his old hair straightener and straightened the tangled mop of hair and it felt _right._ His hair – straightened – went past his shoulder, some parts were shorter than others but it _worked._

 

His younger sister had been experimenting with make up more recently, becoming a teenage girl and all, and had left the eyeliner on the side of the sink. He’d worn eyeliner before, it wasn’t something he was familiar with but he wasn’t distant with it either.

 

Ashton opened his eyes, eyes glancing down his flat chest. It wasn’t right. It felt wrong. His eyes glanced up to his face and he managed a small smile. The eyeliner hadn’t failed that much and his hair looked how he imagined.

 

Ashton showered soon after and slid on some clothes before venturing downstairs. He saw his brother playing video games in the lounge room and his mum and sister in the kitchen baking something that smelt really fucking good.

 

“Hey Ash” his sister greeted him before she squinted “Are you wearing eyeliner?”

“What?” Ashton mumbled a little dazed as he brought his hand to his eyes and wiped it noticing a little black smudge on the back of his hand “I guess so”

“Everything okay, Ash?” his mother asked stopping what she was doing to face her son.

“Yeah, yeah everything is good, yeah” he sighed sitting at the kitchen table with his head resting in his hands. He let his hair fall in front of his face and sighed a little. “Why would anything be wrong?”

“You look like somethings bothering you” she replied walking around to sit in front of her eldest. “Lauren can you maybe leave the room so I can talk to your brother?”

 

Ashton cringed.

 

“You can tell me anything, I will love you no matter what, and you’ll always be my baby boy”

 

_Always be my baby boy._

_Baby boy._

_Boy._

“This is, uh, really hard to tell you” Ashton breathed out, he couldn’t look his mum in the eyes. Ashton chose to look at his hands instead.

 

His hands were too big.

 

So manlike.

 

He hated them.

 

“You can tell me anything, you’ll always be my son” his mother comforted him making Ashton flinch.

 

“Can you please stop calling me that?” Ashton finally got out in a rush. He looked up to his mother’s wide eyes and his chest felt tight.

“Calling you what?” she asked

“Your son! Calling me a boy!” Ashton spoke somewhat loudly and out of breath, like he’d ran a marathon. “I’m not! I-I-I’m not your son! I haven’t been for a long time!”

“What are you trying to tell me, Ashton?” she questioned in a confused tone.

“I’m a girl, mum!” Ashton choked out as tears started to form in his eyes. “I’m a girl trapped in a boy’s body!”

 

It was different telling the band that he was a girl than it was telling the rest of his family. Ashton had decided to not have a change in pronouns until he had told the band and had figured out a new name. It was easier on Harry and Lauren that way as they were a little confused on the whole ‘I used to have an older brother but now I have an older sister’ thing.

 

Ashton had asked the other boys to come over to his house and said that he had important news to tell them.

 

Michael, Calum and Luke sat across from Ashton in the lounge room. Ashton could see his mother hovering in the kitchen on call in case everything backfires – which it shouldn’t because they’re pretty accepting guys.

 

“So, I have something really important to tell you guys” Ashton started fiddling with his hands again.

“Is it bad or good?” Luke asked

“Depends on how you take it” Ashton answered nervously “Well, more recently, but really I’ve felt this way for a really long time now, you may have noticed me acting…strange”

“You have” Michael agreed

“And the reason for that is because” Ashton paused and took a deep breath “I’m transgender”

“Transgender” Calum repeated, rolling the word around his tongue “So like you’re a….girl?”

“Yeah” Ashton coughed out “I’m a girl”

“Is this like, Laura Jane Grace?” Michael asked and Ashton nodded.

“Yes! Exactly that!”

“So” Luke put in “I just need to clarify. You’re biologically a boy but you’re really a girl?”

“I guess” Ashton shrugged

“And it’s not like Eddie Izzard, right?” Luke continued

“No” Ashton thought of how he could phrase what he was trying to say. “Eddie Izzard is a male who likes to wear dresses sometimes and I’m a girl who also wants to wear dresses….no that’s not what I should say. What I’m trying to say Eddie Izzard likes being a male and I…..”

“Don’t?” Michael supplied

“Don’t feel like I ever was one” Ashton says slowly making the other boys nod.

“Do you have like another name? I mean Ashton is a gender neutral name but do you have a more feminine name?” Michael asked.

 

Michael seemed like the one who understood the most about transgender without actually being trans.

 

“Not yet” Ashton paused “I was um going to let my mum pick”

“What about Ashley?” Luke suggested – even though he wasn’t asked to. “That’s like the girl version of Ashton”

“Fuck off!” Ashton laughed “I’m not being called Ashley!”

 

It was later that night when his siblings had gone to sleep when he told his mum that she was to pick his new name.

 

She had gotten emotional and had held Ashton’s hand as she sniffed and wiped at her eyes.

 

“If you were originally born a girl” She sniffed again “I was going to call you Sophie, but looking at you now, it doesn’t feel right”

“Did you have another name picked out?”

“Jayde” She looked at Ashton – _Jayde_ – in the eyes. “Jayde Irwin, my daughter”

 

It was from that moment on, Ashton was completely out of the picture.

 

“Jayde” she repeated to the others. “My name is Jayde”

“Jayde” Luke tried it out and nodded “I like that”

Michael and Calum agreed.

 

She spoke to management about everything. She knew that there is going to be negative outcomes but she hopes that the positive responses overpowered the negative.

 

They spoke about how Jayde would announce her transition, she wouldn’t be going in for surgery for a long time, they were about to release their new album and start a new tour. She was okay with that, she knew these things took time but she felt so much better.

 

She felt the right size for her body.

 

Her skin wasn’t bruised anymore.

 

There wasn’t poison in her veins.

 

She went on her twitter, the twitter that was still @Ashton5SOS but would be changed immediately following the YouTube video she had recorded. Explaining every single detail, from how she felt growing up to how she felt now. How she was changing her name and pronouns and how she felt so much happier.

 

A few tears were shed in that video but that’s okay.

 

An hour after the video had been posted she sent out a tweet.

**@Jayde5SOS: Hey guys….I know it’s weird but I’m still the same person I was before just a girl xx**

 

And it worked.

 

There were a few slip ups between the band but that was expected, the fans, _fuck,_ the fans were so amazing.

 

There was obviously a few people who were being transphobic but majority of the fans stood behind her.

 

She remembers when she posted the first proper photo of her as who she really was. She had been taking estrogen pills for about a month and a half and it was kind of noticeable.

She still looked somewhat masculine but her jaw had softened, hips slightly more defined and waist moving inwards. It was a slow process but it was working.

 

The photo she posted was a full body picture. Luke had taken it. She was wearing a dress, her first proper dress that she bought herself. A black knee length dress that honestly looked more like a top and skirt. Her hair was straightened, touching her collarbones and she was wearing make-up and her legs were shaved.

 

She felt _gorgeous_.

 

Luke was always saying she looked gorgeous. No matter what.

 

It was a few days before their album dropped when the comments really started affecting her. She’d had really bad dysphoria the past few days so she was already on edge and self-conscious but what people were saying tipped her over the edge.

 

Which is how she found herself in the bathroom with a pair of scissors, hacking at her hair. Hot tears streamed down her face as she looked at herself in the mirror.

 

Chunks of hair were in the basin and that was when she realised what she had done.

 

Dropping the scissors in the sink, she sunk to the floor of the hotel bathroom and let the sobs rack her body. She hated herself, why wasn’t she born a proper girl?

 

Why did she have to be transgender?

 

Why couldn’t she stay a fucking boy?  

 

It would have been so much easier.

 

 

Luke found her on the bathroom floor, wearing clothes that _Ashton_ would wear and rubbing at her eyes.

 

“Jayde?” Luke asked hesitantly “What-what happened?”

 

“Ashton” she replied “My name is Ashton”

 

“No” Luke said sharply “Your name is Jayde”

 

“I cut my hair off” she whispered

 

“I can see” Luke walked into the bathroom and sat next to her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Why?”

 

“Dysphoria” she sniffed “The comments on social media got to me. Kept calling me a boy, so I cut my hair off”

 

She laughed. “I’m so fucking stupid”

 

“No, you’re not. You’re a woman. You are a girl. You are a lady. No matter what you look like on the outside, what you identify as is what matters”

 

“They’re saying I’m a boy because I don’t have a vagina or boobs” she choked out “I want a vagina and boobs, Luke, I really do”

 

“I know you do, babe” Luke said rubbing her arm and letting the ‘babe’ slip out.

 

“I just want them to see me like they see every other girl”

 

 

It was the next day when Michael walked in on Luke and Jayde.

 

Kissing.

 

“What the fuck did I just walk in on?” Michael asked as he walked into Jayde’s hotel room. He had his arms crossed but he didn’t look mad, more amused.

  
“Nothing” Jayde replied immediately. Adjusting her new short haircut that Luke had treated her too. It was still feminine but it wasn’t the same. “Absolutely nothing at all”

 

“So I didn’t see you and Luke kissing?” Michael smirked knowing damn well what he saw.

 

“Nope” Jayde replied staring back at Michael. “Shouldn’t you be doing…guy things?”

 

“I don’t know, Jayde, shouldn’t you be doing your make up or something?” Michael shot back.

 

“I’m wearing make-up, you asshole!” Jayde screeched “Can’t you see the lipstick stains on Luke?”

 

Luke snorted. “Sounds like you were quoting ‘She Looks So Perfect’”

 

“And confirmed that you were indeed kissing Luke, which I already knew” Michael said smugly. 

 

 

Luke and Jayde announced they were dating shortly after the release of their second album after they were caught lip locking in the background of a video Michael and Calum had made. It was an accident or so they said.

 

There were a few comments about Luke being gay seeing as he was dating a “boy” but Luke shut them down by posting a photo of him kissing Jayde’s cheek and a tweet.

 

**@Luke5SOS: love my beautiful girl @Jayde5SOS**

My beautiful girl.

 

Beautiful girl.

 

Girl.

 

 

 

 


End file.
